We need more ethnic minority officers, says Met

Change: 10 per cent of the Met’s officers are from ethnic minority backgrounds

Scotland Yard has held talks with the Government about changing the law to boost the recruitment of ethnic minority applicants to the force.

The force said it wants to see positive recruitment to break the mould of a “white, male-dominated” organisation.

Senior officers are interested in replicating a radical Northern Ireland system which saw one Catholic officer recruited for every Protestant officer.

Assistant Commissioner Simon Byrne said the Met’s idea would mean that they “could only recruit, in very broad terms, a white officer if you can recruit a black or minority ethnic person at the same time”.

Mr Byrne, who is in charge of Territorial Policing, said the current race relations law “doesn’t allow us to be as bold as we could be”.

In London, the Met is struggling to catch up with the changing diversity of the capital’s population and a recent recruitment freeze has not helped the issue. About 10 per cent of the Met’s 32,000 officers are from an ethnic minority while the latest census data shows that 40 per cent of London’s population is from an ethnic background.

The assistant commissioner said: “We have not kept pace with the changing shape of London ... The thing we have got to overcome, by legacy and history, we have broadly been, initially, a white, male-dominated organisation.”

His comments came as the Met is about to embark on a huge public recruitment campaign for 5,000 officers over the next three to four years. In an interview with The Guardian Mr Byrne said the danger was that the force would end up missing the chance to change the ethnic make-up of recruits and “get swamped by applications from our relatives”.

He said the 50-50 rule amounted to “positive discrimination” which would require a change in the law. Senior officers fear the mainly white face of policing risks damaging relations with minority communities and also makes the police less effective in fighting terrorism.

In a separate interview Sir Peter Fahy, chief constable of Greater Manchester, said: “The police service is not as effective as it could be in countering terrorism because of its ethnic make-up. A big part of dealing with terrorism and crime is gathering intelligence, having people who get to know local people.”

Mr Fahy said he now wanted to push the law to the limit to stipulate that recruits would be more likely to be chosen if they had knowledge of a language or of an ethnic community.

The Met Police Federation said it was opposed to positive discrimination. Chairman John Tully said: “Any discrimination is wrong, appointment should only be based on merit.”